What's the likelyhood of recieving similar or better funding offers if you wait to reaaply the following application cycle?

[Nico Corr]

I'm thinking of declining all of my offers and trying to get a job in the field/ some other sort of relevant experience and reapplying next year in order to get more funding, or find an employer who will help me foot the bill. One of the schools I applied to offered me a decent sized funding package however, and I'm worried that I may not get offered the same amount of funding if I reapply next cycle. I also won't have enough time to get my econ pre-reqs out of the way between now and when I would start grad school.

Edited April 16, 2018 by Nico Corr

[woolscarves]

Take the job.

I was in your shoes last year. I was graduating and wanted to go into grad school, but decided to take a job offer instead. I've been incredibly happy that I did. It feels incredibly relaxing to know that I'll be more competitive for the top schools having had a two years of work experience. It's also allowed me to save up money that I'll be able to use to reduce the loans that I take out if I have to. In addition, it's also made me that much more excited for the time when I do go back to school.

You will be significantly more competitive for admissions and scholarships with work experience, you will have more to add as a student and as a classmate, and you will be more ready for the academic rigor of the programs. That's not even counting the fact that you will be more competitive for jobs/internships that you're applying for while part of the program if you have previous work experience as well.

I would recommend working at least two years as well. This means that you'll actually have some interesting work experiences to talk about in your applications as well as having time to complete the econ pre-reqs.

[Nico Corr]

33 minutes ago, woolscarves said:

Take the job.

I was in your shoes last year. I was graduating and wanted to go into grad school, but decided to take a job offer instead. I've been incredibly happy that I did. It feels incredibly relaxing to know that I'll be more competitive for the top schools having had a two years of work experience. It's also allowed me to save up money that I'll be able to use to reduce the loans that I take out if I have to. In addition, it's also made me that much more excited for the time when I do go back to school.

You will be significantly more competitive for admissions and scholarships with work experience, you will have more to add as a student and as a classmate, and you will be more ready for the academic rigor of the programs. That's not even counting the fact that you will be more competitive for jobs/internships that you're applying for while part of the program if you have previous work experience as well.

I would recommend working at least two years as well. This means that you'll actually have some interesting work experiences to talk about in your applications as well as having time to complete the econ pre-reqs.

Thanks for the reply Woolscarves. I actually have over ten years' work experience in a different field, and was hoping to use the degree to help me segue into another career. I've had some serious misgivings about my path since I've applied however (not least due to all the horror stories posted on this site) and am seriously reconsidering my path and goals.